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Why the government doesn't just buy a ton of compute/servers to dominate crypto/TOR?

submitted by IwuvU to AskUpgoat 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 11:39:07 ago (+6/-0)     (AskUpgoat)

Especially with TOR all they would have to do is spend a few mil on nodes and they'd be able to see everything. Why don't they just do that? Seems like they'd be stupid not too...

Then as far as crypto why fight it? Just use the money they steal from us to buy all the compute and then they control the money again. I mean.... that'd definitely work.

For the price of 1 nuclear submarine (antiwar.com's Scott Horton's saying) they could do both and have enough left over to replace every statue of George Washington in the country with a crack pipe distribution kiosk.


31 comments block

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[ - ] beece 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:03:26 ago (+1/-0)


Likely they already have computers gleaning everything.

[ - ] Qwertytoal 10 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:09:32 ago (+10/-0)

They do dominate TOR exit points.

[ - ] DanHalen 3 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:13:08 ago (+3/-0)

If the government hasn't regulated something, made it illegal, or hasn't made hoops to jump through, then they must want people to buy into it. Im all for some other forms of currency, but I have always been skeptical of digital currencies. I'll admit that I am not the most educated person on the topic of cryptocurrencies, and maybe I'm old enough that the technology has gotten away from me. But as I grow older, I distrust everything a bit more.

[ - ] deleted 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:16:05 ago (+1/-0)

deleted

[ - ] lord_nougat 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:56:48 ago (+0/-0)

Sounds like some beaner illegal alien.

[ - ] Spaceman84 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 15:33:24 ago (+0/-0)

Monero. He's dyslexic.

[ - ] lord_nougat 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 20:23:54 ago (+0/-0)

What a morono!

[ - ] Broc_Liath 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 13:45:02 ago (+1/-0)

They have regulated it, out the ass. Their ability to do so remains limited though.

Think along the lines of torrenting. They made it illegal, they let the MPAA sue grandmothers for millions of dollars over one song, and still torrenting is widespread. Some tech just can't be bottled up.

[ - ] deleted 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:16:34 ago (+1/-0)

deleted

[ - ] diggernicks 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:31:56 ago (+0/-0)

If you cant live w out a smart phone you should be gassed

[ - ] lord_nougat 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 12:57:38 ago (+0/-0)

The government totally does this!

The real one. In beijing.

[ - ] Broc_Liath 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 13:51:23 ago (+0/-0)

I've heard this argument before. "A lot of miners are based in china so Xi controls crypto." The trouble with that argument is that even if he did order them to fuck with the network, he'd effectively be ordering them to burn their investment and kill their business. They might, but it'd be a very one-off event.

[ - ] rage 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 13:35:12 ago (+1/-0)

The US Government's various agencies are technically incompetent and outsource tech work.

The paid actors we call Congress would never know what to do with a large crypto mine and the people running it would skim everything.

[ - ] Broc_Liath 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 13:49:39 ago (+0/-0)

TOR? Yes, and they likely already do.

Crypto? Too expensive. In order to attack a POW crypto network you need 51% or greater of the computing power. Think of all the miners around the world trying to grab the next bitcoin, they'd need that many computers and more just to take it down.

Not only that, they'd have to do it all over again for every coin because each coin's algorithm is slightly different and prefers different chips.

For POS networks it's arguably even harder: They'd have to own 51% of the entire currency. So they'd have to go around buying memecoins from nerds, use them to fuck up the network, then start from scratch on the next coin.

It would be the worlds' most expensive game of whackamole.

[ - ] IwuvU [op] 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 14:39:56 ago (+0/-0)

I'm pretty sure buying more compute than all independent miners would be few molecules but in the drop in the bucket for them.

[ - ] Broc_Liath 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 16:20:23 ago (+0/-0)

It wouldn't. It's not just a question of purchasing power it's also a question of supply. Even if they bought every single GPU being produced it would take years for them to accumulate enough, and by then they'd have incentivised so much competitive production they'd constantly have to buy more to stay on top.

Plus, like I said, that doesn't deal with POS.

[ - ] KyleIsThisTall 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 21:39:15 ago (+0/-0)

The feds confiscated the Silk Road escrow wallet a decade ago.

[ - ] Broc_Liath 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 21:45:20 ago (+0/-0)

Yes. If they get your private keys then they get your wallet. But that's just one wallet, not the entire network.

[ - ] KyleIsThisTall 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 21:51:00 ago (+0/-0)

They had a huge amount of BTC right before it started gaining value. Why do you think it gained value? Don't you think thy made a bunch of miners and wallets after they got that large wallet?

[ - ] Broc_Liath 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 21:56:03 ago (+0/-0)

Don't you think thy made a bunch of miners and wallets after they got that large wallet?

No? Why would they?

Also, why would having a large amount of bitcoin incentivise them to invest in mining more? The ROI measured in bitcoin goes down over time. If you already have a few million bitcoin there isn't much point busting your ass to earn another 1 or 2 per month.

[ - ] KyleIsThisTall 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 22:01:44 ago (+0/-0)

To pump it. It wasn't worth thousands a coin back then. They had to make it look desirable to pump what they had. Plus then they could monitor this "shadow economy" if they had their own wallets working the ledger. Remember, this was a decade ago.

[ - ] Broc_Liath 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 22:09:53 ago (+0/-0)

None of what you say makes sense. You don't need to have a wallet or large sums of bitcoin to "monitor" the blockchain, the whole thing's public. Having large amounts of bitcoin or mining a lot of it also wouldn't help you to increase it's value. The only way to do that is to buy lots of it from other people.

[ - ] KyleIsThisTall 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 22:16:53 ago (+0/-0)

You have no idea how pumping works. And you don't know what a sock puppet is.
Continue thread

[ - ] ForgottenMemes 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 14:01:54 ago (+1/-0)

[ - ] breh 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 15:00:47 ago (+0/-0)

Why make money, when you can take money? They don't need to mine coins like peasants when they can just seize millions at a time from people who already have.

[ - ] SaneGoatiSwear 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 5, 2022 15:00:58 ago (+1/-0)

This is what China has done. Something like 80% of crypto is mined in China.

[ - ] Merlynn 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 06:59:46 ago (+0/-0)

The fuck makes you think they haven't?

[ - ] Garbalon 1 point 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 20:28:56 ago (+1/-0)

They have. Next question?

[ - ] KyleIsThisTall 0 points 3.2 yearsMar 6, 2022 21:37:09 ago (+0/-0)

implying they already don't

TOR was originally created by the Navy

The feds confiscated the entire escrow wallet from Dread Pirate Roberts when they shut down Silk Road.